


A Part Of The Narrative

by killingmonsterswritingthings



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Hamilton - Freeform, M/M, POV Alternating, Skype
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 11:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6516166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingmonsterswritingthings/pseuds/killingmonsterswritingthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack falls in love with Hamilton The Musical</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Part Of The Narrative

**Author's Note:**

> this is incredibly self-indulgent, but i had to share it anyway

Jack hadn't paid much attention to it at the beginning, even when people in his classes had already started talking about it. There had been other things on his mind, too many important questions to let another distraction in.

But when he found himself getting acclimated to a new city over the summer, alone save for George and occasional phone calls back home, he was grasping for some comfort and in a strange way, that was what music provided. Previously it had only ever been there in the background, not something he obsessed over or even paid a lot of attention to, but of course all that had changed with Bitty.

Especially Shitty had jumped on the opportunity to give him music recommendations – claiming that after years, Jack was finally listening to him. Jack liked the artists Bitty sent to him much more, but he listened to whatever Shitty provided him with anyway. Maybe out of habit, maybe out of some kind of sense of belonging.

So when Shitty sent him another Youtube link he sighed but clicked on it anyway because it was already after midnight, he had nothing else to do and couldn't sleep. The “ _u'll love this!!_ ” line accompanying the link didn't sway him at first. He knew better.

Ironically, his interest rose the second he read the title of the video.

“Hit Musical _Hamilton_ debuts on Broadway”

He remembered the chatter from his classes, some of his nerdier fellow students sharing excited facts about this musical that was supposed to come out.

“ _Where did you even find this?_ ” he answered Shitty, the video paused halfway through.

The answer was a simple “ _lardo_ ” and came after Jack had finished the video.

He was entranced. He understood his classmates' enthusiasm now.

He couldn't help himself – he had to look it up. He didn't even know if it was out of genuine interest at first or just a weird sense of responsibility to Shitty or maybe the echo of his professors in his ears, but he did it.

Half an hour later he was weirdly endeared and knew that either he would regret this terribly or not regret it at all.

  


  


  


  


By September Jack was ready for the cast album to come out because he was so interested in how they had actually spun the entire thing, the soundbites and videos not satisfying his curiosity anymore. Bitty seemed oddly skeptical but Jack didn't mind too much.

He had something nice that he was going to experience on his own for the first time and that was okay.

When he finally was able to listen to it, it was kind of flooring, in a sense.

He had made sure that he didn't have to do anything on the day he listened to the cast album for the first time so he wouldn't have to interrupt and ruin the experience – he finally understood it now.

But he hadn't expected it to be so close. Not to what had actually happened, but so close to modern times.

From the first second, the first note he was enchanted.

  


And it was too close to home.

It didn't even make sense, really, but he could feel it. He could feel it tearing through him and changing him.

Still, he ended up closing the blinds on his windows and listening to the album twice in a row, headphones securely on his head. By the end he was crying again, head between his knees, but it was strangely alright.

It cut him to the core and stitched him back up in the next song.

He'd never experienced anything like it. Sure, he'd had songs stuck in his head before, had gotten a rush of emotions from a melody or a line of lyrics but never like this. Never with this intensity.

It was something else entirely.

He knew he could draw strength from this.

  


  


  


Of course Bitty listened to it anyway – despite his initial hesitation – after Jack had caught himself humming mindlessly one too many times on Skype. “It's music. Not only that, it's a _musical_ ,” Bitty said, ducking his head – looking almost self-conscious – “and you love it, so of course I'm going to give it a shot.”

Jack felt tempted – for maybe the first time in his life – to make a joke involving lyrics. He didn't. That was maybe a little too corny to still be considered a chirp.

  


  


Jack got off the ice from practice the next day to a text from Bitty.

“ _Hamilton is_ incredible _and I'm not even through yet.”_

He felt his mouth stretch into a smile and was about to type out an answer when one of his teammates bumped his shoulder. “Come on, shower first.”

So Jack left his phone and went to shower reluctantly, a small smile on his face the entire time.

When he got home that day and signed onto Skype, Bitty called him almost immediately.

“Jack!” he said, very loudly and very accusingly and Jack had to stifle a laugh. “This is a _tragedy_!”

“It's a musical about Alexander Hamilton, Bittle,” Jack chided with amusement in his voice. “What did you expect?”

“Less feelings,” Bitty grumbled.

Jack laughed. “If all of history has taught me anything it's that there's feelings involved everywhere.”

“You don't say,” Bitty snorted.

“It's weird, that aspect of it,” Jack admitted after a moment. “Seeing history presented like that.”

“There's a lot of differences, isn't there?” Bitty said and Jack could see him stretching out on his bed, lazy in that post-workout haze the knew all too well.

“Yes,” Jack said, “but I'm trying to treat this as fictional, mostly...” He paused for a minute and made a helpless gesture. “It's weird.”

Bitty shifted again, moving closer to his Laptop. “They had to condense it a little, I guess,” he said.

“Hamilton had nine children,” Jack said before he could stop himself, “and in the show he has maybe... two. And we only get to know Philip. It's abridged and it's biased, but that's what happened to all of history in our textbooks.”

Bitty laughed. “I love you,” he said, easily.

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Are my random history facts that endearing?”

“More than you think,” Bitty said.

Jack had to smile despite himself.

  


  


  


“Which one is your favorite song?” Bitty asked lazily on another Skype date a few days later, his head propped up on his arm.

“Meet Me Inside,” Jack answered and it was immediate. He saw Bitty's face shift into something closer to concern on the screen and oh. _Oh._ Maybe that had been a little too fast and a little too honest. “What's yours?” he asked, trying to deflect from how he couldn't – or rather didn't want to – explain his choice.

Bitty only hesitated for a moment. “Helpless,” he said with an easy smile.

Jack could feel himself flush. “Look into your eyes and the sky's the limit, eh?” he said, anyway, because he couldn't stop himself.

“Oh, shut up,” Bitty grinned. “Not on our first meeting, anyway.”

“You wound me.” Jack clutched at the fabric over his heart in an over-dramatic fashion, causing Bitty to laugh out loud.

“I'm surprised you can quote it, anyway.”

“There's more to me than just being a simple hockey robot,” Jack said. “You of all people should know that.” There was a short pause, before he added. “It's how I feel about you, anyway. The sky's the limit.”

Bitty hid his face behind his hand. “ _Jack!_ ”

“It's true,” Jack smiled. It was a new and unfamiliar feeling but he liked seeing Bitty this flustered, knowing that he had put that expression on his face. He wasn't above going for the corny jokes anymore to get there, either.

  


  


  


It took barely a week for Bitty to become so helplessly enamored with Hamilton that he too was humming parts even when he was talking to Jack.

“I think the others are getting sick of me and my singing,” he said after catching himself for the third time.

Jack had to put his glass of water down so he didn't accidentally choke on it. “If that was possible it would have happened by now,” he said, deadpan.

“Rude, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty said but he was laughing. Jack's lips curled into an easy smile in response almost automatically.

There was a knock at Bitty's door and Bitty turned towards it.

“Hey, Bitty, I just wanted to-,” Jack heard Chowder say before he stopped himself. “Oh, is that Jack?”

“Yes,” Bitty said and Jack could see the smile forming on his face even in the profile view he had.

“Hey Jack!” Chowder yelled and stepped into the reach of the camera a second later.

Jack couldn't help himself. “Are you guys getting sick of Bittle's singing?” he asked. Bitty flushed.

“No!” Chowder looked almost scandalized. “It's cute, we love it. Although his rapping needs work.”

“Don't talk about that,” Bitty said hastily. “Ransom's gonna hear!”

Jack hid his smile behind his hand while he saw Chowder shake his head. “He's at the library.”

“Oh thank the lord,” Bitty breathed, stealing a glance at Jack before looking back at Chowder. “I'm sorry, you were going to ask something.”

“Ah,” Chowder made, seemingly having forgotten himself. “Yes! You put out that pie to cool off earlier and I wanted to know if I could have a slice.”

Bitty chuckled. “Just one,” he said. “You know the rest is for tonight.”

“Al _righ_ t,” Chowder whooped and was gone without so much as a goodbye – he did yell a muffled “Thank you” from halfway down the stairs however, if Jack's ears didn't betray him.

“Tonight?” Jack asked with a raised eyebrow after Bitty had redirected his attention to him, still bearing a soft smile about the young goalie.

“Designated Haus TV night,” Bitty explained. “Captains' orders.” He threw a look towards the door and sighed. “I should probably make another pie.”

It was bittersweet that life went on without Jack at Samwell – but he knew that he would always have his memories and all his friends on top of that would stay, just in different and changing ways.

  


  


  


The Hamilton craze caught onto the Haus, to an extent that Bitty's previous musical endeavors had not, and Jack felt strangely proud.

“ _I swear Ransom used at last five Hamilton lines in today's speech. Please tell me you don't do that._ ” Bitty's newest text read.

Jack grinned. “ _I don't hold speeches_ ,” he wrote back. Thank god for that. It had always been one of his least favorite parts of being a captain and one of the things he happily handed off to the coaches.

“ _He told us not to throw away our shot. It was so cheesy._ ”

“ _You tweeted_ _about that_ _, didn't you?_ ”

Of course Bitty had.

Jack still didn't have a twitter but he did check Bitty's on occasion now, whenever he remembered – or missed him too much in the middle of the night.

It gave him some comfort and an anchor so he wasn't swept away in the dark.

He was slowly starting to feel at home.

  


  


Hamilton was a frequent topic in their group chat, too. The group chat that Jack – foolishly – had assumed would end after he and Shitty graduated. At least he had thought they would be deleted from it in favor of the frogs. He had been wrong.

Shitty: “ _guys wtf i'm so sad about laurens_ ”

Ransom: “ _shitty it's literally 3am_ ”

Lardo: “ _go to sleep, shits_ ”

Shitty: “ _you don't UNDERSTAND_ ”

Jack rolled his eyes as he went through the messages from last night, new ones not pouring in yet at the early hour where everyone was still – or finally – asleep. Except him, of course.

“ _It's very tragic_ ,” he typed out before he was out the door to his early morning practice.

Shitty's answer came much later, just after Jack finally checked his phone again.

Shitty: “ _don't MOCK me_ ”

Shitty: “ _and don't mock my son laurens either_ ”

Holster: “ _your SON?_ ”

Chowder: “ _did you pick that up from bitty_ ”

Dex: “ _probably_ ”

“ _Most definitely_ ,” Jack wrote.

A second later Bitty's message arrived: “ _i'm strangely proud_ ”

Shitty: “ _you should be_ ”

Shitty: “ _double influence bro_ ”

Shitty: “ _anyway who's gonna fund all the water i need to replace what i lose in tears?_ ”

Jack laughed and put his phone away, content to let the others squabble with each other while he went to get food.

He loved his team and he loved that they would never even have considered cutting him out of their lives.

  


  


  


“Does it get weird?” Eric asked. He was lying on his back on his bed, his own face staring back upside down at him from the screen.

“Mhm?” Jack made, half-distracted by trying to button up his shirt. Eric had managed to call him the moment he had gotten out of the shower and Jack had accepted the call only half-dressed, claiming that he just couldn't say no to Eric.

“Knowing so much about the history of the United States,” Eric clarified, one of his feet knocking against the headboard of his bed. “I mean, it's not even your home country.”

Jack blinked. “I have a degree in history,” he said slowly. “And we're neighbor countries. Historically very close neighbor countries. Socioeconomically very tightly interwoven. It's like... people in Germany probably know a lot about France, too.” He grimaced. “That was a terrible comparison,” he added and Eric had to laugh.

“You probably know more about France than me, too,” he teased with a smile, looking right through Jack.

“Well, yes,” Jack sighed but Eric knew that he wasn't annoyed. “And I guess, in a way everyone knows about US history.”

“I'm gonna ask my followers about this,” Eric declared, his phone already in hand. Jack sighed again but Eric caught his smile before he diverted his eyes from his Laptop screen to his phone.

“Let me know what they say,” Jack said while Erc flipped over onto his stomach so he didn't accidentally drop his phone onto his face while he composed his tweet.

The determined expression on his face melted into a small smile when he wasn't paying attention, one that, he realized after a second, made Jack suck in a surprised take of breath breath. “I will.”

  


  


“ _It's an international phenomenon apparently_ ,” Bitty texted Jack an hour later, long after they had disconnected their call. “ _People from everywhere are super into it._ ”

When Jack relayed the same message in the group chat, everyone seemed to be surprised.

Holster: “ _Wtf america_ ”

Ransom: “ _that's too much influence for one nation_ ”

Lardo: “ _it's a musical, guys_ ”

Shitty: “ _ok but tbh it might be an american musical about american history but you have to consider that lin-manuel miranda wrote it and like the casting of poc is very deliberate. it makes it very accessible and above all RELATABLE_ ”

Dex: “ _ok_ _chill_ _you didnt have to write an entire essay about it_ ”

Shitty: “ _i haven't even started_ ”

Jack grinned slightly because he was sure that no one really wanted to get into this right now, but Shitty would write them all ten texts anyway.

He was happy that everyone seemed to have latched onto it with such vigorousness. Sure, Lardo and Shitty had been the ones to originally find out about it but at first it hadn't seemed like Hamilton was much more than a small blip on their radar before Jack had become so attached to it. And now it was a team-wide thing.

  


  


  


The new year came too fast, in a whirlwind of business and weather changes and by the time March rolled around their Skype sessions were usually quiet. They were exhausted and content just to enjoy each other's virtual company in silence for the most part. Jack was glad just to look at Bitty while he worked on another paper, sometimes he would read a book himself. It was calm and happy and he enjoyed it.

“It changed,” Jack said that day, unprompted, and Bitty looked up from his homework with a crease between his eyes, looking momentarily disoriented.

“Hm?” he made.

“My favorite Hamilton song,” Jack clarified, Bitty's features already softening. “It's Wait For It now.”

And Bitty tilted his head to the side at that and smiled. “Good choice,” he said. He returned to his homework for a moment before looking back up and sticking his pen behind his ear. “Mine changed, too.”

Jack lifted his eyebrows, waiting for the title to follow.

“Schuyler Sisters. Closely followed by My Shot though.”

Jack nodded and hummed. “Schuyler Sisters… It's very Beyoncé,” he said, before he could stop himself.

Bitty's eyes widened. “Wow,” he made and Jack was pretty sure that he, too, hadn't wanted to say that out loud.

“You're rubbing off on me,” Jack said with a sigh, then, in a smaller voice he added, “I miss you.” He could've just let it be but he needed Bitty to know that he thought about him constantly, that he hated not being able to touch him, that he missed seeing his smile in person and not in pixels.

Bitty smiled sadly. “I miss you, too.”

“I'll come to see you soon,” Jack promised.

  


  


They couldn't skype for a few days after that and it was maybe a week later that they finally saw each other's faces again. Coincidentally it was also that day that gave Jack the idea for Bitty's birthday present.

“I wish I could see it,” Bitty mumbled, his cheek resting on his hand, his eyes drooping visibly even over the webcam.

And Jack knew. He knew he had to do it.

He hadn't even thought about going to actually see the musical before, too damn busy and too damn caught up in his hockey and his world as he was, but the minute Bitty mentioned it Jack was sure that he wanted this.

He started researching before they even ended their call and it was probably a testament to Bitty's exhaustion that he didn't notice how distracted Jack was.

Getting tickets was ridiculously hard with the show being sold out for years and tickets going on resale sites for ten times their value. But Jack was anything if not dedicated and so he tried his hardest.

For this he wasn't above using his name and his reputation and his legacy. His father's legacy, at that, but he would do it.

He still felt a little awkward getting in contact with someone at the theater just to ask if there would be the possibility to get tickets for later that year. Yes, he was serious. Yes, he was really Jack Zimmermann. Yes, he would like tickets and he was prepared to wait for them. He didn't want the special treatment per se but he needed it.

It took a while but when he finally managed to secure tickets the relief and joy was a lot bigger.

Now he only had to make the surprise perfect.

  


  


The surprise to himself came a few days later when Lin-Manuel Miranda himself got into contact with him. Jack hadn't taken the man for a hockey fan.

They started talking via e-mail and Jack revealed that he actually really desperately wanted the tickets for a friend of his. It only gave him a little pang of guilt to write _friend_. They had talked about this. They were friends. They were also _boyfriends_ and _partners_ , but it wasn't a lie to say they were friends.

  


  


  


  


“Burr is maybe a little too relatable,” Jack said, chin resting on his hands, for once having nothing else to do but looking at Bitty's face. “I'm trying to treat him as a fictional character but… it makes me uneasy.”

“Knowing that he was a deeply flawed person who was actually alive?” Bitty asked and Jack sighed and nodded.

“You make him sound better than he actually was with that description,” he added.

Bitty shrugged. “I know,” he said. “But also, he is dead. And the portrayal in the musical is amazing. You're not erasing all the bad things he did by relating to him in a semi-fictional setting.”

Jack had to smile. “Thank you,” he said, and he meant it. It had been hard just to say that he was somehow seeing himself in Aaron Burr of all people, but Bitty had immediately understood.

Alexander Hamilton might have been the better choice but then again, his decisions had also never been the best of the bunch.

  


  


  


Jack drove up to Samwell for Eric's birthday – not for long, of course, since they were both exhaustingly busy, just for a few hours after practice. But Eric was immensely happy anyway, despite the news that Jack in fact wouldn't be able to attend the birthday party the others had planned for the weekend.

Opening the door of the Haus for Jack would never get old, really. Not in a million years. He thought that maybe, maybe a decade down the road he would still remember this.

For now getting to spend his actual birthday with his boyfriend was enough.

He still flung himself into Jack's arms the moment he arrived though because he hadn't seen him in forever, despite the relatively small distance between them and despite their respective promises to visit more often.

“I've missed you,” he mumbled into Jack's neck and Jack responded with a low rumble that Eric knew lay somewhere between laughter and agreement.

“I know. I love you,” Jack said.

  


He insisted on giving Eric his present in the kitchen and Eric tore open the simple envelope hastily, gasping at the first peek at the content. He could have sworn his heart stopped for a moment.

“Oh Jack,” he breathed, “you _didn't_.”

“I did,” Jack said, sounding proud of himself and Eric just had to surge up and kiss him.

“We're going in the off-season, of course, because everything else would have been too much of a gamble,” he explained when they parted. “I would have loved to take you to New York over this weekend but, well...” He shrugged, trailing off and Eric laughed.

“I would have loved to be whisked away to Broadway,” he admitted. “But this is more than fine.”

He would have never dreamed that his life would turn out like this – his _boyfriend_ giving him Broadway tickets for his birthday – but now that it had happened, it felt like the best thing in the world.

“Shitty and Lardo are gonna be _so_ jealous,” Eric said, unable to stop the grin from spreading over his face.

Jack laughed. “They can come with us next time. But this… this is just for us, just this once.”

“I'm glad,” Eric replied. He really knew no one better to deserve to go have a nice day in New York and see a show he had become very attached to than Jack.

They deserved this.

  


  


  


Bitty called him frantically two weeks before their trip to New York, voice rough through the receiver and the sound of other people and the wind on the other side.

“Jack, oh gosh, what if we meet the _cast_?”

Jack wedged the phone between his shoulder and his ear and went back to trying to pick out bell-peppers while suppressing a laugh. “Is this a hypothetical or a wish because I might be able to arrange for that.”

“ _Jack_!” Bitty wailed and Jack almost flinched, his voice shrill in his ear.

“Just say the word,” Jack hummed, finally satisfied with his choice of vegetable and put it in his cart. Bitty would probably scream even louder if he knew that Jack had been talking to Lin.

There was silence for a second, then Bitty sighed and mumbled: “Well, I wouldn't say no, you know, but I'd probably embarrass myself...” He trailed off. Jack laughed.

“You've met my entire team,” he said, “and didn't embarrass yourself.”

“Yes, I know, but I know how to deal with hockey bros.”

Jack bit his lip. “I distinctly remember you getting star struck when you met Parse for the first time.”

Bitty squawked. “Jack!” he made, again. Then, “for like five minutes, alright. Whose side are you on here?”

“Yours, always.”

And that took the wind out of Bitty's sails a little. “Jack,” he repeated, softer this time. Jack smiled and almost pushed his cart around the corner into the aisle with the baking supplies.

He didn't have to ask Bitty about wanting to meet the cast again.

  


  


  


  


They had planned for Eric to spend a big chunk of his summer holidays in Providence anyway so Eric arrived at Jack's flat three days before their trip to New York, already a bundle of buzzing nerves.

Jack wordlessly led him into the kitchen while he himself brought Eric's suitcase into the bedroom – and Eric set to work.

“Do you think they accept baked goods at the stage doors?” he asked, when Jack came back into the kitchen.

“Shitty tells me they do,” Jack said with a shrug and moved past Eric to lean against the counter out of the way.

Eric hummed a pleased answer while he was measuring flower, then he hesitated. “Shitty…,” he echoed, the realization hitting him. “You _asked_ people about this?”

Jack laughed and made a slight hand motion to dismiss the comment. Of course he had.

“Wait, did you buy all these baking supplies for me?” Eric continued and Jack just smiled silently. “Jack...”

Eric couldn't believe how considerate and thoughtful Jack was. How well he _knew_ him, already, despite their differences.

He baked entirely too much that afternoon – and coming from him that really wasn't an exaggeration. There were a lot of cupcakes, some of which Jack took to icing with Hamilton themed words, and also a few things Bitty had made Jack look up that were maybe not historically accurate but would still garner some attention.

“I think I'm calmer now,” he said when he finally put out the last pie to cool and Jack looked up from where he was cleaning flour off the counter.

“That's because you've been baking for almost eight hours,” he said drily. “You have to be tired.”

“Oh, that's nothing,” Eric said but blinking the exhaustion out of his eyes along with his words. “My record is eleven hours.”

Jack looked at him like he doubted his sanity but ultimately went back to the task at hand with just a shake of his head.

  


  


  


They took the train to New York, having booked a hotel room for four days, and Bitty was ecstatic.

He was slightly bouncing up in his seat for the first ten minutes of their trip until Jack couldn't take it any more. He gently took the Tupperware container that Bitty was holding out of his hands and put a hand on his knee.

“The play isn't even until tomorrow,” he said and Bitty sighed.

“But I'm so _excited_!”

“Me too,” Jack said, unable to keep the smile off his face. “But you can't keep going like this or you'll fall asleep during the play tomorrow because you'll have exhausted yourself.”

“Distract me, then,” Bitty said.

Jack bit his lip before he reeled his mind back in. “Alright,” he said, considering it for a moment. “Which scene are you looking forward to the most?”

“How is that supposed to _distract_ me?” Bitty asked.

“Well at least talking about it might let out some of that excitement,” Jack shrugged.

Bitty seemed to think for a moment. “I really want to see how they did Ten Duel Commandments with the turntables. And Room Where It Happens. _Oh_ , and the ending, the last song, with Eliza in the spotlight.” He pressed his hands to his cheeks and stared at Jack with unabashed emotion.

Jack smiled and let him ramble on for a minute before cutting back in with his own thoughts. “I just really want to see all the costumes in person. And Non-Stop interests me.”

“Non-Stop is going to be _incredible_!”

This way the train ride passed faster than anticipated, them firing ideas back at each other while the scenery outside rushed past.

  


  


They both slept surprisingly well that night after checking into the hotel, even though Bitty's nerves had transferred to Jack and he tossed and turned for an hour before finally falling asleep.

The next day started with an impromptu dance session in their hotel room after Bitty had started singing along to Right Hand Man blaring from his phone speakers while he was getting ready. Jack had been pulled into it, of course, and after a minute he hadn't thought it as awkward anymore.

After they finished breakfast an hour later Jack found that their group chat was already rapid-firing messages.

Lardo: _“i hope you guys have fun!!”_

Chowder: _“bring me a souvenir?”_

Shitty: _“please tell lin i say hi if you meet him”_

Jack: _“That would be weird, he doesn't even know you.”_

Shitty: _“i've interacted with him on twitter, bro. that counts for something!”_

Bitty laughed silently to himself as he read over Jack's shoulder while Jack frowned.

“Well, let's go fill their requests,” Bitty said, half-ready to just pull Jack along.

“It's still hours until the performance,” Jack protested. They were going to have to be early, but not this early.

“Then we can go look at the city,” Bitty said and well, Jack didn't object to that.

New York was hot in the summer – not that any other city wasn't, at this point – and Jack found himself cursing climate change half an hour into their walk in Central Park while Bitty laughed.

“At least it's not unbearably humid,” Bitty said.

“That's the only advantage though,” Jack said, trying to keep in the shadow of the trees as much as possible. “How did you survive in the south this long?”

“Evolution?” Bitty ventured with a shrug.

Jack had to laugh about that a little, of course, and they went into a museum a little later, the air-conditioning a blessing to both of them.

  


  


Jack made them go to to the theater a full two hours early and refused to tell Bitty why but he thought it was probably pretty obvious. Of course they got a little backstage tour before actually seeing the musical.

The cast, or well, the parts of it who were already there, seemed genuinely happy to meet them and still, over a year into their run, excited about their show. It was just as infectious as Bitty's enthusiasm.

Bitty was bashful and nervous when handing over the containers with his baked goods but the entire cast seemed to love them – even Jack's decorated cupcakes were received well. He hung back anyway and watched as Bitty was grilled about the baking process and the ingredients and the effort and smiled to himself.

Of course Jack couldn't help himself anyway and asked a few questions about the casting and writing choices with regards to diversity and representation later, when the excitement about Bitty's pies had tapered off, to satisfy both his and Shitty's curiosity.

He felt surprisingly comfortable and also – naturally – found out which cast members were hockey fans. As he suspected Lin wasn't exactly one of them, but all of them knew Jack's name anyway. It was hard not to, probably, even though he liked to believe he still didn't have Sidney Crosby's level of fame.

  


“If Shitty was here he would probably argue with them over Alexander Hamilton's bisexuality,” Jack mused under his breath and when he looked to the side Bitty already had his hand in his pocket to grab his phone. “Don't tell him that.”

“Aw, fine.”

  


They were shuffled back out of the backstage area a little under an hour before the show and Bitty had calmed down considerably, even though the gleam in his eyes was still very pronounced.

  


  


Eric gave a little gasp when the curtain opened. He just couldn't help himself.

It felt a little surreal.

  


  


Actually seeing the play was a hundred times better – and worse – than the first time Jack had listened to the cast recording.

He felt like he was being swept away directly into the past but in a magical way that made everything look lighter, softer and sweeter than it had been. And he loved it.

Seeing it brought to life was a little overwhelming to say the least, but he pushed it away in favor of treasuring every word that Leslie sung as Burr.

  


  


When Eric looked over during Wait For It – previously too engaged in the show to do much more than squeeze Jack's hand sometimes – Jack was crying.

Not outright, tears streaming down his face, but they were threatening to spill over either way and he had one hand pressed to his heart.

Eric didn't want to interrupt his focus on the stage, didn't want to make him tear away his eyes from Burr singing his heart out, so he refrained from nudging him with this knee and instead only gripped his hand a little tighter.

This was okay.

  


  


They stayed in their seats for another minute after curtain call, both speechless. Then Bitty leaned into Jack's space.

“I cried so much during the second act,” he whispered.

“I know,” Jack answered hoarsely.

His heart was still beating entirely too fast for the experience to be over.

  


  


When they got out of the theater they made it only around the corner – because Jack was polite and didn't want to stand in the way of people – before they had to stop and Jack had to take a deep breath of city air.

“So, what did you think?” Bitty asked after a second and Jack let out the air he had exhaled.

They smiled at each other.

“It was everything I wanted.”


End file.
